Franchise History
The Butte Copper Kings, named for the once-powerful owners of the copper mines of Butte, Montana, began play in the Pioneer League in 1978 as a co-op team with players from the Seattle Mariners and Texas Rangers organizations.
Beginning in 1987, the franchise had been operated by Silverbow Baseball Corp. It was sold in 1996 to the Goldklang Group in a move necessary to stem conflict-of-interest issues when Silverbow head Jim McCurdy had taken the position of President of the Pioneer League in 1994. Silverbow had attempted to sell the franchise in 1994 to investors from California, but the deal fell through when it was discovered that the would-be owners had lied about their personal financial backgrounds.
Following the 2000 season, the team relocated to Casper, Wyoming as the Casper Rockies (and renamed to the Ghosts before the 2008 season) and affiliated with Colorado.
On January 13, 2011, Casper Professional Baseball Club, LLC announced the sale of the team to Monfort Investment Group, a group headed by Colorado Rockies General Partners. At the same time it was announced that Tim Ray would become the executive director of the Ghosts; Chris Maxwell and Phil Choler remain as General Manager and Assistant General Manager, respectively.
October 17, 2011, Grand Junction city officials unanimously approved a lease agreement to the team, making Suplizio Field home to the newly renamed Grand Junction Rockies.
Read more about this topic: Grand Junction Rockies
Famous quotes containing the words franchise and/or history:
“To-day women constitute the only class of sane people excluded from the franchise ...”
—Mary Putnam Jacobi (1842–1906)
“When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?”
—David Hume (1711–1776)